Sensational
by Brievel
Summary: Kakka Freetaan, tabloid reporter, has a very bad day. It's almost as though she's been sabotaged...
1. Chapter 1

It all actually started the night before. During her evening toilette, she had poured a generous amount of her favorite shampoo into her hand. Noticing an unusual green tint and goopy consistency to the clear substance, Kakka Freetaan had examined the bottle. Upon seeing a "New Look!" sticker she'd missed previously, she shrugged and massaged the shampoo vigorously into her hair. It wasn't until she stepped out the shower and saw herself in the mirror that she realized that it was, apparently, some idiot at the factory's idea of a joke to spike the shampoo with dye and stick a "New Look" label on it. Teeth gritted, she got out her broad range of top-of-the-line hair products and set about performing damage control.

Five hours later, the bright green dye was still firmly in place, and the glue had made its presence known as her hair dried. Staring disconsolately at herself in the mirror, Kakka reflected that at the moment, her hair very much resembled Jedi Master Kit Fisto's headtails. Whimpering in dismay, she finally located an old black hair dye that she'd stuck in the very back of her cabinet, and applied it thoroughly to cover the appalling green.

Thinking some caf might help her feel better, she swathed herself in her robe and exited the fresher, padding barefoot the kitchen. Starting the caf brewing, she sat down in from of her panoramic living room windows to sulk and wait. Her glum mood was deepened when she saw smeary fingerprints all over the outside of the transparisteel – doubtless, those young hoodlums from several floors down flying up again and daring each other to smear up her transparisteel.

Pouting, the tabloid reporter returned to her kitchen, hunting through her cabinets for a mug that didn't still have traces of lipstick all around the rim. After examining each mug in turn, and placing it in her dishwasher, she was finally reduced to hand-washing one in order to be able to drink her caf while it was fresh. Plopping dolefully back down in front of her smudgy windows, Kakka sipped at her caf, which seemed more bitter than usual. Depressed, she want to bed.

The next morning, despite all her scrubbing, she could not get the caf-stain off her teeth from where she'd forgotten to brush them the night before. Not encouraged by this inauspicious start to the day, she donned her red blazer and skirt, heading off to work. The congestion seemed even more snarled than usual that day, and she got in late, heading straight to her workstation. Intent on getting started, she sat down quickly on her expensive, nerf-leather covered desk chair, before leaping right back up again with a small shriek. Some kriffing idiot had unzipped the leather cover and stuck black tacks up through it, and Kakka had sat right down on them.

Giving a tight little smile, she waved off the concerned looks her colleagues were giving her. "Just something in my chair," she tittered, attempting airiness but falling slightly short. Kneeling, she unzipped the seat cover, removing the tacks and cursing fluently under her breath as she did so. Finally sitting down in her now tack-free and holey chair, she booted up her computer. It seemed to take rather longer than usual, and Kakka clacked her fingernails impatiently on her desk. Finally, it started, and she pulled up her various drafts, videos, and still holos that would be used in her day's work.

The slow booting was only the start of her digital troubles, however. Multiple times, the computer terminal rejected her datapad when she plugged it in, froze continuously, and moved slowly and jerkily when it did finally start processing. Beyond irritated, the reporter finally pulled up browsing history, and felt her perfectly styled eyebrows climb skyward. Someone had been doing something illicit on her computer, the amount of cookies it had stored was astronomical, and it had picked up two viruses. Grinding her teeth together, Kakka set about cleaning up her drive.

Moreover, a rotten, fishy smell had started permeating her space.* She glanced about her desk and the floor repeatedly, trying to find the source, as her co-workers moved their chairs more or less subtly away from her, casting dark glances in her direction. Feeling utterly put-upon, she pulled her motivational HoloMessage for the day, only to be confronted by a video of herself a few years previously, when she'd been invited to speak at a college dinner. "Remember, my young friends," the younger Kakka Freetaan chirped cheerfully, staring straight at her disgruntled counterpart, "As long as you remain positive, everything will work out fine!" Kakka had never wanted to punch herself in the face so much.

Someone was kind enough to get her caf, which actually tasted worse than her own the previous night. She drank it anyway, complaining every couple of sips. It wasn't until five minutes later, and an ominous gurgle from her stomach, that she remembered what the funny taste reminded her of – the smell of industrial-grade hand soap. With a shrill gasp of alarm, she ran for the ladies' 'fresher.

It was not just her caf that was soaped, either, it must have been in the machine. There was a constant demand for the 'fresher for several hours, as the staff dismally consumed vast quantities of water, all the usual bubbly personalities washed away by the sabotaged caf. Tempers ran higher than usual, and snarking was audible throughout the day.

To make matters worse for Kakka personally, on her first 'fresher trip, she'd noticed her lipstick had faded. Digging through her purse, she discovered, to her dismay, that the precise shade of red she needed had somehow disappeared. She certainly didn't remember taking it out, but it was equally certainly not there, and she finally had to settle for a reddish bronze that went horribly with her suit and new hair color.

At lunchtime, Kakka went out with a group to a nearby café where they all usually ate. Ordering with the rest, she claimed a seat at the table, and, as the conversation progressed, felt her good humor slowly returning. As her receipt number was called, she went up to the counter to pay, once again riffling through her purse. To her complete dismay, her credit chit was missing – not in her wallet, not in the interior pocket of her purse, not in any of the exterior pockets, not lost among the other items... Humiliated and hungry, she was forced to refuse the delicious meal she'd ordered and leave the café empty-handed. Without enough time to return home to pick up anything, she was forced to return to the office, resigned to a very hungry day.

In her absence, the fishy smell had gotten worse, and the line for the 'fresher was still stretching down the hall. Giving up the abysmal day as a lost cause, Kakka sat down at her computer and pulled up her games menu. Idly swinging back and forth, she noticed a faint squishing sound coming from the swivel every time she moved. A horrible suspicion of the source of the rank odor assailed her, and she promptly put in a request for a new chair to the janitorial department.

At time to clock out, Kakka was first in line for the door, ignoring the mad dash and subsequent jam beside her as she strode to her speeder as fast as dignity would allow. All but leaping inside, she veered out into the nighttime traffic, carelessly breaking traffic rule after traffic rule in her fervent desire to get back home. Pulling into her allotted space, she swiped her passkey in the lock, shoving her door open and stumbling inside. Sticking a dish of leftovers into the heating unit and turning on, she leaned back against the counter to wait. The flat plate inside rotated twice, before the unit let out an unearthly screech that subsided to a whimper, and went dark.

Practically pulling out her hair, Kakka grabbed a fruit from the bowl on the counter and staggered down the hall to her room. Kicking off the outrageous high-heeled shoes, she collapsed face-first onto her custom-pressure air-filled mattress. A soft 'phthlwup' sound, following by a long sad sigh, greeted her graceless flop, and she settled slowly down on the frame. Letting out a scream of frustration, she grabbed a pillow and buried her face in it.

* * *

 _In a dingy diner in CoCo Town, a young woman swathed in a dark cloak sat at a back booth and silently laughed her head off at the display on the 'pad lying on the table in front of her. Grinning like a nexu, she set about editing the several hours of footage into a more compact form, gesturing to the waitress droid for yet another drink. Reviewing her final handiwork, she cackled again and uploaded it to the Net, sending it off with a short message:_ Mission accomplished, Master. _  
_


	2. Author's note

I know, I know, I know, the author's note is not supposed to be in a separate chapter! *dodges projectiles* I didn't want to mess up the flow of the story, though, so I'm committing that faux pas.

First off, Kakka Freetaan isn't mine - the fabulous DarthRuinous let me borrow her. Said Sith Lady writes stellar prequels and pre-prequels era Palpatine-centric fics, that range from Angst/Horror to drama and suspense to the downright gory to a... very Dark... sort-of fluff, to the humorous (which, I have to admit, are my favorites.) You should really go read (and review) her writing!

Secondly, the fishy smell - I once read a man's recollection of, when he had a horrible female boss, on the last day on his job, he unscrewed the seat of her desk chair from the base and stuffed it with shrimp. Kakka also read that account, in this 'verse, hence her suspicion of what the smell was.

Thirdly... this may or may not tie in with another of my stories, recently started. *innocent whistling and wandering off*

Fourthly... I peppered this with my own brand of humor, can you get all the references and jokes? =)


End file.
